#remember when goku asked vegeta to spare buu at the end of the manga? that was HUGE for vegeta

[evilkitten3]

THAT INTERVIEW THOUGH my brothers and i like to play the "who would win x vs y" game a lot and sometimes goku gets shuffled in and i always have to add the caveat that, if the other character is mostly a good guy, this isn't a fight to the death fight it's a friendly comparison fight.

like if the question is "who could win" the answer is usually goku. but i can't imagine him going all out the way he would if it was a fight to the death but if it wasn't, goku wouldn't be going all out bc he just. doesn't like hurting people. for him, that's an unfortunate but necessary part of life, but it isn't something he actively seeks out.

vegeta, though... well, i imagine that a large part of that is just his life having been pretty much a continuous stream of traumatic events, but regardless of why, it's pretty clear from the get-go that hurting people for him is a bonus, at least at the beginning. it makes sense that he's like that, both given the general attitudes of most of the saiyans we've met and vegeta's own upbringing, but either way, vegeta when we first meet him enjoys hurting people

i think vegeta is someone who has always had someone he needed to be better than– initially, that was frieza. vegeta's goal has always been another person and he doesn't easily swap between targets, so once goku beat frieza his target switched to goku. before goku did that, vegeta just seemed to see him as someone he'd need to kill after he'd dealt with frieza himself, but frieza was still his true goal. once goku had won, though, goku took frieza's place as "person i need to be stronger than" for vegeta, and that didn't change even when vegeta learned that goku hadn't killed frieza and future trunks did it instead. f!trunks actually ended up taking goku's original place of "i'll kick his ass later" (but he got out of it by vegeta going "wait i'm his dad?" and then much later going "wait hang on i actually care about this kid wtf")

anyway, that's why - to me, at least - it was such a big deal that vegeta accepted goku being stronger than him at the end of the manga. it wasn't just him going "oh well guess i'll give up forever" like his post-cell sulking, it was him finally accepting that he didn't need to defeat goku, that it was possible for both of them to exist together

that's something goku never needed to learn– for goku, it's always been an option to coexist with people, it's always been acceptable that other people could change. it hasn't always been easy, but most of goku's friends were his enemies at some point.

that's part of what makes goku and vegeta's relationship so fascinating for me– they have so much in common, but their worldviews are so fundamentally different that it's almost impossible for them to properly understand each other. i talked about this a bit on my dbz shitpost blog, that goku and vegeta didn't understand each other until literally being the same person, but i focused more on vegeta bc i'm me. on goku's end, i think it's in large part that he chooses to see the best in everyone. or, i guess, it's more that he chooses to see the best that everyone could be. goku believes in second chances, and third, and fourth, and so on. to goku, it never seems to be too late to become a good person. or at least to stop being a bad one.

a lot of people dismiss goku's kindness as idiocy - which makes sense to some degree; one of his character traits is being "stupid" - but as i've gotten older, i've begun to appreciate it more and more. people can't change if you don't let them– and goku is someone who is always willing to let people change. no matter how awful someone is, goku will always believe they can become a better person. there's something beautiful in that, i think.

[dragonsballsz]

Galaxy brain realization: Vegito's name uses the "-to" from "Kakarotto" because, as suggested by the name, Vegeta is the dominant personality that makes up the fusion, while Gogeta uses the "Go-" from "Goku" for the opposite reason.

i’ve heard that theory before, and i’m not against it, but it’s not quite the theory i usually go with.

anyhow, buckle up bc this gets extensive.

both goku and vegeta refer to vegeta as “vegeta” (bc his name is vegeta), but they differ in terms of how they refer to goku. neither gogeta nor vegito spend much time pondering their names - they just basically go “guess i’m gogeta/vegito” and move on. but in the manga, vegito explicitly refers to goku as “kakarot” before deciding on the name “vegito” for himself.

this comes right after goku and vegeta’s argument on fusing, which, following goku’s explanation of how it works, has vegeta state that he’d rather die than fuse with goku, and goku responding that this isn’t the time for pride. however, vegeta says that he feels goku hid ssj3 from him during their fight either as manipulation or mockery, and that that’s why he refuses to fuse. goku tries to explain, but vegeta comes to the conclusion that goku was mocking him, only agreeing to fuse after goku tells him that buu has eaten bulma, piccolo, gohan, goten, and trunks. even then, he’s still clearly unhappy about it.

that discussion, to me, demonstrates how little goku and vegeta understand each other. despite knowing goku’s kind and honest nature, vegeta still isn’t able to come up with a reason for goku not to use ssj3 that doesn’t boil down to something antagonistic towards vegeta (manipulation or mockery). on the other end, goku - understandably - assumes vegeta is refusing to fuse bc he feels that working with goku infringes on his pride rather than bc he feels slighted that goku didn’t go all out against him earlier - he misses that it’s not so much vegeta’s pride as a saiyan warrior as it is his deep-seated insecurity of not being strong enough.

their inability to understand one another is still key to their relationship, and that shows in vegito. to me, vegito’s name - and the basis of his existence - come from how vegeta and goku view one another. vegito showcases their respect for one another’s fighting abilities, but his personality doesn’t quite mesh with either of them. he switches from dramatically announcing that he’s “super vegito” to a serious face ready for battle. “super vegito” is a callback to when vegeta first achieved super saiyan, declaring himself “super vegeta”. goku was barely conscious for that, but it occurred right after vegeta viciously kicked him out of the fight (yes, he was technically saving him, but he made sure to be as nasty about it as he could). as for the serious face, that shows up multiple times. however, i’m reminded of planet namek, when vegeta had just been murdered by frieza (but hadn’t quite died yet). he’s lying there dying, and watches goku’s face go from concerned to understanding to determined.

vegito’s behavior seems drawn not from goku and vegeta’s actual personality traits but from how they view those traits in one another. vegito is arrogant and clever, vicious and excitable. but all of those traits are only shown briefly, even in the limited time vegito is onscreen. i believe that this is bc the impression one person has of another can only ever really scratch the surface of who that person is - that’s not necessarily a bad thing; just kinda how it goes.

after falling apart, they seem to have gained a stronger understanding of each other - vegeta still refuses to fuse inside buu, but that’s bc he finds that dance ridiculous and demeaning. this time, however, goku just lets it go. he puts up no argument whatsoever to vegeta’s refusal to fuse. to me, that’s because he’s gained a deeper understanding of how vegeta functions (read: barely) and where he’s coming from. on vegeta’s end, he becomes much more cooperative with goku, now that he’s quite literally been in his shoes. he knows goku isn’t looking down on him, he knows he’s not being mocked or manipulated. when goku asks vegeta to buy him time, vegeta agrees right away. when vegeta is about to kill good buu, after ignoring mr. satan’s pleas for him to not do that, goku steps in and tells dende to heal him. rather than blasting buu out of spite, vegeta asks goku for an explanation and backs down once he’s gotten one. he still makes it clear that he views buu as a threat, but he’s a threat vegeta is willing to allow to keep living. for vegeta, that’s huge. remember, this is the guy who slaughtered the ginyu force as soon as goku took them down, only sparing ginyu himself because he’s no longer a threat and will have to spend the rest of his life as a helpless frog. and yet he spares buu, who is still an enormous threat and who vegeta died trying to get rid of, solely because goku asked him to.

so vegito, to me, is symbolic of them learning to understand each other. he’s quite literally the final step to cement them as friends - the physical embodiment of going to therapy, if you will.

gogeta, however, seems much more put together. granted, i haven’t really been able to consume much media with gogeta in it - he’s not a canon manga character, which is my main source for consuming dragon ball, so my main source for gogeta is clips i’ve seen on youtube and things i’ve read on the wiki.

gogeta comes off as more solidly a person. i feel in part that this is due to his first appearance being in gt, where goku and vegeta are on somewhat better terms than in dbz. from what i’ve seen, gogeta is much more put together than vegito is. he’s still willing to pull pranks and mock people, but there’s always an ulterior motive. he’s got goku’s humor, but he’s able to put it aside in order to defeat an opponent - or use it to his advantage. he’s got vegeta’s viciousness, but he’s able to curb it once the threat is neutralized, even if said threat is still alive and could return to wreak more havoc.

the way i see it, vegito represents goku and vegeta’s understanding of one another, whereas gogeta represents their understanding of themselves. various traits show through more in various circumstances, but neither is ever what i’d call “dominant”. for example, if a bookworm and a jock were to fuse, you’d see more of the bookworm if you were in a library and more of the jock if you were in the gym. the presence of the other wouldn’t be lessened, it would just be less noticeable to outside observers. i think it’s the same here.

that’s just my take on it, though.